Search Results

This chapter investigates the changes in age patterns of death and sex differentials in mortality. It also examines changes in causes of death and their impacts on China's mortality patterns. It shows that because mortality reduction of the same magnitude has not taken place simultaneously in all age groups or populations of different sex, considerable changes have been observed in both age patterns of death and sex differentials in mortality. This conforms to a general trend recorded in many countries.

During the early years of the 20th century the pathologists held sway. Their detailed post-mortem examinations of fetuses promised to provide answers about causes of death. But the relatively small samples they used and their inability to recognize a substantial minority of causes led to the recognition of their limitations. The epidemiologists took over. The availability of registration data coupled with the popularity of large, scientifically based population surveys encouraged the development of social obstetrics. Family background, maternal health, reproductive history, income, nutrition became, during the 1930s and 1940s, the key factors in attempts to explain the now obviously high levels of fetal mortality. This clash of research cultures can be personified by the figures of Dr John Ballantyne of Edinburgh and Professor Sir Dugald Baird of Aberdeen. Their work in pathology and epidemiology symbolizes the contrast between biological and sociological explanations. This chapter focuses on the 20th century, the high plateau of late-fetal mortality before 1940, and the sustained decline thereafter. It contrasts the pathological interpretation, via Ballantyne among others, and the epidemiological-sociological, via Baird. Through the series of Child Life Investigations sponsored by the Medical Research Council the pathologists stressed the need to better quality obstetric care from both physicians and midwives, while from the social obstetrics camp came pleas for a better quality of material life and lower, planned fertility.

This chapter summarizes the changes in diabetes mortality for the entire population and among persons with diabetes. It examines sociodemographic differences in deaths from diabetes and the contribution of diabetes to other causes of death. Factors that are related to mortality, especially modifiable factors, are discussed. Measurement issues, such as factors associated with diabetes when diabetes is listed as the underlying rather than a related cause of death on death certificates, are also discussed.

This chapter describes methods used to obtain information relevant to studies of ecology and conservation from dead birds. Collection of dead birds from the field and their storage are described. Techniques used in post-mortem examinations are explained and key terms are defined. The internal anatomy of birds, as it is observed post mortem, is introduced. Recording forms are supplied for examinations of dead birds and eggs. The collection, preservation, and storage of tissue samples for subsequent investigations are described. The uses of laboratory tests carried out on tissues and blood samples taken from live and dead birds are explained. The interpretation of post-mortem findings and attribution, and of causes of death are discussed. Legal and safety aspects of post-mortem examinations are considered.

One in every four people in the United Kingdom dies from cancer. This dreaded disease develops in over 50 per cent in the population aged 65 and above while more than 20 per cent of people aged 75 and more are affected by it. The commonest cause of death among the populace was lung cancer, a disease attributed to life. Before the 20th century, it caused a mortality rate of 23 per cent. Prostate cancer, the second most common cause of cancer death, causes death in men between the ages of 75 and 79 years old. In contrast, breast cancer, which is the most prevalent cancer disease in women, affects the younger strata, often causing deaths in those aged 35–54 years. The third most common cause of cancer death is colorectal cancer. There has been little change in the mortality rates over the past years. Other cancer diseases such as stomach cancers, bladder cancers, testicular cancers, and leukaemia have caused a lower number of deaths over the years. This chapter focuses on death caused by cancer diseases. The first death-causing factor tackled in this chapter is cancer treatment. Here, the invasive treatment methods, drug side effects, and the long-term effect of cancer treatment that may lead to the increasing incidence of death are detailed. The main causes of death in cancer patients are emphasized as well. Focus is directed to the most prevalent causes of death in patients with cancer, such as infection (e.g. sepsis and pneumonia), thromboembolism, cachexia, haemorrhage, and specific organ failure.

This chapter examines issues surrounding the determination of the cause of death as being heart disease in forensic investigation. It presents an observation about medical examiners who often wrote arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) on death certificates. ASCVD implies that a hardening and narrowing of the arteries around the heart has caused or contributed to the death. This chapter explains the mechanism through which forensic authority operates and suggests that medical examiners' work procedures favor a particular set of causes of death.

This chapter deals with the past occurrences of mortality crises in Europe. However, as the study raises, there is no definite and exact definition of mortality crises: thus, the study establishes parameters or qualifications in order to consider if there are mortality crises. The study considers the following as important factors as to whether there are mortality crises: the main cause of deaths occurring in a certain place like diseases, economic factors, war, plague and other natural occurrences; time — specifically month and year; proportion of the mortality rate to the size of the total population of the particular country; the effect of the causes of death vis-à-vis marriage and conception and other factors. This chapter also explains how mortality crises occurred in different places in Europe during different times.

This chapter focuses on the contributions or effects of alcohol consumption to mortality rate at the time when Estonia, former GDR, Poland, Russia, Lithuania and Latvia are at the rapid pace of transforming to market economies. It also deals with the impact on mortality rate of alcohol consumption before the transition period and its difference to the post-transition period. Alcohol consumption affects mortality rates either as the direct cause of death or as the proximate cause of death arising from accidents, traumas, suicide or homicide. A large portion of deaths due to external causes like accident are attributable to alcohol consumption. However, in the countries stated above, liberalization of the economy is not a factor in considering why alcohol consumption affects mortality rate.

This chapter begins the ethical discussion by examining the widely held consensus that patients have the right to refuse medical treatment, including life‐sustaining treatment. It opens by outlining the standard Doctrine of Informed Consent, including the key condition of patient decisional capacity. It develops a justificatory framework for informed consent by appealing to the foundational values of patient well‐being and autonomy and shows how informed consent allows patients to waive their right of bodily integrity in order to accept medical treatment. It then demonstrates how the right of informed refusal is an integral ingredient of informed consent. Finally, it raises the question whether refusal of life‐sustaining treatment can be equivalent to suicide and how the determination of cause of death plays an important role in answering this question.

Maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity have received increasing attention in both industrialized and less industrialized countries in recent years. The definition of maternal death and its subtypes (direct, indirect, pregnancy-related and late) and the definitions and components of severe maternal morbidity (disease-based, intervention-based and organ dysfunction-based) are discussed in this chapter. Historical trends and international comparisons of maternal mortality are also presented along with the challenges in identifying and collecting information on maternal mortality and serious morbidity. Other issues highlighted in the chapter include the Millennium Development Goals, non-life threatening morbidity, and 3 specific causes of severe maternal morbidity, namely, postpartum hemorrhage, amniotic fluid embolism and urinary incontinence. Methodologic issues related to the study of maternal mortality (e.g., study size and design issues, confounding by indication and mortality among pregnant versus non-pregnant women) and severe maternal morbidity (e.g., heterogeneity of a composite morbidity outcome) are also explored.

This chapter discusses forensic investigation of the cause of infant death. The work of medical examiners in these cases involves simply conducting an autopsy to document the damage of the trauma and to rule out alternative, natural explanations. The only challenge lies in infants who are brought to the morgue with few or no signs of trauma. This chapter suggests that the investigation of infant deaths constitutes a prime site for observing forensic authority at work because these unexpected deaths require careful balancing of the sources of legitimacy underlying medical examiners' authority.

This chapter examines Duff's views on the relative roles of culpability and outcomes in criminal liability, and particularly his claim that it is ‘natural’ to assess actions in terms of their impact on the world. It reviews some changing patterns of criminal liability, notably a revival of emphasis on culpability as the core of new offences. In particular, it considers a range of new offences and sentencing norms relating to the causing of death, raising questions about the circumstances in which the occurrence of death should be relevant to the label of the offence or to the quantum of sentence.

This chapter examines the royal physicians' account of James I's death. When the king fell ill in early March 1625, few doubted that he would soon recover. On 16 March 1625, nearly two weeks into James' illness, the royal doctors had diagnosed the king with a ‘pure intermitting tertian’ ague, or fever. The king's death on 27 March 1625 caught many by surprise, fuelling speculation about what had gone wrong. The king's doctors, however, quickly produced an authoritative explanation of the medical circumstances of James' illness and death, offering a comprehensive account of the pathological forces that had destroyed him. Their account, written in the language of learned medicine, formed one crucial strand of the authorized version of James' death.

Taking a population and global perspective, this chapter examines a range of morbidity and mortality patterns over the life course—from infants to elderly populations—and health concerns that are specific or pronounced in particular groups, including, women, men, LGBTQIA, people with disabilities, and Indigenous populations. Breaking with the traditional dichotomy of communicable versus noncommunicable diseases, this chapter introduces a political economy of disease typology: diseases of marginalization and deprivation (e.g., diarrhea, malaria, and respiratory infections); diseases of modernization and work (e.g., cardiovascular disease, cancer, and road traffic injury); diseases of marginalization and modernization (e.g., tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, and diabetes); and diseases of emerging (global) social and economic patterns (e.g., Ebola. influenza, narcotics use). Rather than classifying types of illness as chronic or infectious, the typology seeks to relate disease and death to the larger political economic order that spans countries of different income levels and trajectories.

This introductory chapter discusses briefly the history of care of the dying in the Anglo-Saxon countries. It reveals that the development of modern urban-industrial society was marked by a demographic transition and an epidemiological evolution. The chapter then identifies the common causes of death in modern society, late-modern society, and even during the nineteenth-century. The British model of the hospice is mentioned in passing. The introduction also includes a short overview of the seven chapters that folow it.

This chapter reviews the literature on the terminal phase of head and neck cancer patients. It attempts to provide some practical advice about the management of common problems that might be encountered during this phase. The chapter examines the concept of a ‘good death’, which can vary between individuals and is also influenced by factors such as culture, personal circumstances, and religion. It determines that most patients with head and neck cancer die in hospitals and that their deaths are a result of a gradual deterioration of their condition.

Terrorist attacks have typically involved using young people strapped with explosives, dispatched as ordinary pedestrians to outdoor cafés, buses, seaside resorts, university commons, or anywhere civilians could be killed, on what the West calls suicide bombings but which the militants themselves understood as martyrdom. This chapter explores the deeper conceptual and ethical significance of tactical suicide missions within the context of more general issues about suicide, self-sacrifice, heroism, martyrdom, and other forms of self-caused death. What, exactly, accounts for the heightened moral repugnance with which these missions are viewed, compared to other resistance, military, and guerilla tactics? Is there adequate moral ground for this heightened repugnance dubbed with the particularly pejorative label of “suicide” — or is it merely a matter of ideological prejudice? A number of different reasons may be advanced to show that suicide bombing is immoral, and indeed of heightened or, one might say, aggravated immorality. This chapter also examines the morality and amorality of suicide bombing.

The principal reported causes of death have changed dramatically since the 1860s, though changes in categorization of causes and improved diagnosis make it difficult to be precise about timings. Diseases particularly affecting children such as measles and whooping cough largely disappeared as killers by the 1950s. Deaths particularly linked to unclean environments and poor sanitary infrastructure also declined, though some can kill babies and the elderly even today. Pulmonary tuberculosis and bronchitis were eventually largely controlled. Reported cancer, stroke, and heart disease mortality showed upward trends well into the second half of the twentieth century, though some of this was linked to diagnostic improvement. Both fell in the last decades of our period, but Scotland still had among the highest rates in Western Europe. Deaths from accidents and drowning saw significant falls since World War Two but, especially in the past 25 years, suicide, and alcohol and drug-related deaths rose.

Notifying the community that a burial was to take place was challenging in communities having only a weekly newspaper. A variety of means were employed: bells, party-line phones, word of mouth, handmade funeral notices. Obituaries, often published long after the burial, contained a wealth of information not found today, including the deceased’s last words and cause of death. Coffins were carried to the cemetery, or transported there in the back of a wagon, truck or later, in funeral home hearses. Prior to closing the coffin it was customary for mourners to take a final, farewell look at the deceased. There was no societal taboo against this, the touching of remains, or viewing any that were deteriorated.